Sama awards: Local singer tipped for best album prize

With an award for best production on an album under his belt, it is no surprise that Bryce Anderson’s debut album, Undescribable, was nominated for this year’s South African Music Awards (Samas).

Anderson, who was born in Pietermaritzburg and grew up in Woodlands, is up for Best R’nB Album of the Year at the 15th annual MTN Samas, scheduled to take place on Saturday, May 2, at Sun City.

When Weekend Witness caught up with the 30-year-old during the KZN leg of his promotional tour this week, Anderson said he is nervous about the about the results, but he is honoured to be nominated.

“I won’t lie, it’s nerve-wracking to know that people are judging my work,” he said. “But this is a milestone in my musical career. It’s a blessing to reach a point where my music can be judged on accolade as opposed to just record sales.”

Anderson launched his album in September last year, and sales have done reasonably well considering that he is still in distribution negotiations with the major record stores.

His music is being played on most regional radio stations and on a few national ones too. “I hear my song on East Coast Fm three or four times a day ... It’s great to be getting this much support.”

The singer is in Johannesburg shooting the videos for the first two singles of the album (Undescribable and Moonlight).

He said the album took him three-and-a-half months to pen and produce. “I played all the instruments. I did all the vocals ... back-up included. I wrote every song. This album is all me.”

Although this is his first musical offering, Anderson is not new the South African music industry.

Since 2004, he has written for and worked with some of South Africa’s most popular musical talents, including girl group Jamali, Ghetto Lingo’s Bjorn, soul singer Amanda Gwala and Nikki.

He won the 2008 Metro Fm Award for Best Produced Album for Nikki’s debut album.

“I started working with local artists. I did some work with East Coast Flava,” said Anderson. “The music started spreading all over the country and I suddenly got calls from lots of other artists saying that I must write for them, and it just grew from there.”

He described winning the Metro FM award last year as “out of this world” and said it would be “extremely wonderful” to win a Sama award.

On the strength of the nomination, Anderson has been invited to play overseas.

“We definitely want to take the album abroad. I’m playing to perform in the United States and the United Kindom. But we’ll see.”

He is also planning to host two major concerts in Pietermaritzburg and Durban after the awards show. “I’m going to come back with all of my friends and have two massive concerts here.”

For now, though, Anderson is focusing solely on the Sama nomination. He knows that he faces tough competition, but he isn’t deterred.

“Guess we’ll have to see ... May the best man win,” he said with a laugh.

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